Lots of jockeying lately in the development of next-generation mobile phone software.

Nokia taking full control of Symbian, and announcing that it would subsequently make its operating system free for software developers, warranted front-page news in the Financial Times. Similarly, rumors of significant delays in the rollout of Google’s Android system, the cornerstone of its Open Handset Alliance, prompted questions about whether or not it would ever catch up with the iPhone.

The idea of the mobile handset as the next computing frontier has been anticipated for a decade, ever since cellphones became commonplace. It took a long time for enough computing power, and Internet-accessible infrastructure, for this idea to actually come to pass. If this is just another false start, it looks real enough.

Android’s problems are curious, because they confirm my suspicions that it’s not progressing smoothly. When Google announced the first round of winning apps for integration into Android, and it turned out that they were all some sort of location-keying functions, my reaction was, “so what?”. After months of development, to present what amounts to widgets that mash-up with Google Maps seems like an underwhelming achievement. I can see the value in these for Google — they can sell tightly-targeted AdSense inventory, thereby creating new revenue streams — but are they really all that compelling? And more importantly, are they anything that can’t be easily, and quickly, replicated by current phone providers?

Compound that with the bloody nose that Google’s already getting by having to dicker with handset makers over conforming their code to “fit” the hardware. This is very much uncharted territory for Google. They’re used to dealing with pure software, and Web-based software at that — classic code-once, run-anywhere stuff. That’s the basic idea behind Android, but it requires cooperation from handset makers who, really, don’t have to go along with Google’s vision. And with Symbian being unshackled, they now have even less reason to let Google call the shots.

I realize it early in the process, but to me, this is already looking like a disaster. Between the culture clashes and the competitive landscape, I don’t see much chance for Android to take hold, much less dominate. Two to three years from now, this will go down as one of Google’s most significant setbacks.